George Pickens Makes Shocking Admission about Effort vs. Colts

PITTSBURGH — George Pickens criticized the media for criticizing his effort on Tuesday in a press conference. With calls for Pickens to be benched and traded, Pickens called out the media for having opinions when they do not play football.

“All the people that’s questioning my effort, they don’t play football, they do what y’all (in the media) do….all that people that got opinions, they’re media, surface guys. None of them play football,” Pickens said.

This week, Pickens was criticized once again for a lack of effort. In the first quarter of the game, with the Steelers driving and just after Pickens had made a catch to put the team into the red zone, running back Jaylen Warren broke free and was headed to the end zone. Pickens was down field, but he made seemingly no effort to attempt to block Colts cornerback Jaylon Jones. Pickens stood still and watched as Jones made the tackle at the 1-yard line, preventing Warren from scoring. Diontae Johnson defended Pickens, but acknowledged the issue at hand.

George Pickens on why he didn’t block for Warren: “I was just trying to prevent the Tank Dell situation, the same thing that happened to (him). I ain't want to get an injury. When you stay on the block too low, you can get ran up on very easily.”

pic.twitter.com/zF4UUMVpBP

— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) December 19, 2023

“I was just trying to prevent the Tank Dell situation, the same thing that happened to (him). I ain’t want to get an injury. When you stay on the block too long, you can get ran up on very easily,” Pickens said.

For reference, this was the injury to Dell, who was blocking in-line and got rolled up on, resulting in him fracturing his fibula and requiring season-ending surgery.

Because Pickens brought it up, here’s the Tank Dell injury. Not exactly the same situation. pic.twitter.com/3zSGDnqDbC https://t.co/hWawdBX9wn

— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) December 19, 2023

While George Pickens is blaming the media, Mike Tomlin sat down with Pickens last week to clear the air about his frustrations and lack of effort at times. But that seemed to not get through.

Tomlin described how defenses will come into a game with an agenda to attempt to limit an offensive star for as long as possible to start a game, with the hope that by doing so, they’ll grow frustrated and take themselves out of the game.

“He and I had a great meeting this week,” Tomlin said. “He needs to understand it is an agenda. It is a game plan. It is something that’s constructed to break him and the unit down. And that’s why it’s so important that he manages the frustration component of it.”

Pickens didn’t have any notable verbal outbursts on the sideline, but he was again sulking on the bench during the game.

Tomlin took an unusual step in publicly detailing how and why one of his players needs to improve. It’s up to Pickens to make it happen or he will face the music, but it seems like that is not happening.